It is fashionable, of course, to paint football
supporters as utterly, hopelessly, if rather endearingly, sad. Football supporters are
boys who never grew up. Obsessed with their teams, failures at relationships, unable to
get on with anything resembling a life, they are typified as rather sweet, occasionally
trying creatures, who need looking after.
This is, of course, bollocks.
It probably isn’t fair to blame Nick Hornby
for everything, but he’s a good place to start. He bears more responsibility than
most for perpetuating the idea that football fans are big kids. It was a notion seized
upon by one and all. And it’s tempting, because it serves to excuse any amount of
misdemeanours. It’s also handy, because it’s a hook on which to hang lazy
journalism. In Hornby’s wake followed a slew of crap self-deprecating pieces along
the lines of ‘I know I’m a sad git, but (I think) I’m amusing’:
predictable, unoriginal, boring.
Here we say this: supporting football is good.
It makes you a better person. It equips you for life. Far from being a substitute for
getting a life, actively following football enables you to develop a whole range of
skills, which have wider application beyond the game.
Allow me to elucidate. Ignorance of one’s
own country should be a crime. The poor grasp of geography of today’s youngsters is
frightening. Football is what these kids need. I do not mean the modern, market-driven
passive consumption of football-related products. I am the last person to encourage a
single more southern child to pledge their sweaty pennies to the Man Utd merchandising
machine. But actively supporting a team, and going to their games, demands a keen grasp of
geography. You need to know that Millwall don’t play in Millwall, and that there is
no such place as Port Vale. Knowing about the country in which you live is important.
Football helps you develop this knowledge.
It is probably a testament to the declining
importance placed on mental arithmetic that goal difference replaced goal average. But
through football, number-blind cretins such as myself may become masters of numerical
manipulation. Once you’ve worked out exactly how many points per game you need to
ensure mathematical safety, doing the household accounts can hold no fears. Perhaps school
children should be set such problems: if Blackburn need at least a win from their last two
games but Southampton only need a point, will a draw against Manchester United mean the
Bastards are finally relegated?
Travel, they say, broadens the mind. Active
football support does, of course, require travelling. Travelling to away games can’t
help but be an enriching cultural experience. This is why we deplore coach transportation
and encourage independent travel at all times. Travel by coach can amount to being ferried
from one football ground to another without interruption, and, as all football grounds now
look the same, can be a seamless and bland affair. Travelling by car or train, however,
you cannot fail to see and experience something of the town you wish to visit. This
division alone allows you to experience the great architecture of Cambridge and Oxford,
the earthly seaside delights of Blackpool and Bournemouth and the extraordinary pub
culture of Bristol and Nottingham. How could you return from these without having learned
something?
But more importantly, if fellowship is life then
football is fellowship. Football, at our level at least, is still the people’s game.
It’s a social game. It involves mixing with people, talking to strangers and making
friends. In these fractured times, Burnley provides a little glue to bind us together. I
know people all around the world and have good friends who I otherwise would not know
except for Burnley. Our club brings together people from all walks of life, with different
ages and experiences, united by the single fact of Burnley. Burnley and its many varied
exiles form a dispersed but still vibrant community. This is hardly ‘sad’.
This is not just a bloke’s thing either.
Way before women had to start getting interested in football for the purposes of social
advancement, Burnley enjoyed a larger proportion of female support than most. It’s
because Burnley FC is by far the biggest thing in the town. It’s at the heart of the
town. It matters. It matters to the women as well as the men
That said, I will always maintain the slightly
sexist position that football was invented to give men something to talk about. For that,
we should be grateful. Football knowledge is an essential social lubricant. (Both glue and
lubricant: what a versatile product this is.) It eases many a potentially awkward
situation when meeting someone you don’t know. Stuck for something to say? Try
football. If they know about it, you’re sorted. If they don’t, that probably
tells you something about that person. Without football, whatever else would we talk
about? The weather only gets you through five minutes. Football is good for a lifetime.
So parents, think on. By introducing your child
to football, you are enabling them to develop lasting and useful social skills. This
strikes me as the very opposite of ‘sad’.
The ability to avoid those embarrassing
conversational lapses is not the only social skill that football offers. For example, I
find that football toughens you up to face the real world. Walking down a dark street at
night, ominous shadows around you, fancying you hear footfalls behind you? You might feel
scared. On the other hand, you might have seen Burnley win at Cardiff, Millwall and
Plymouth. This puts a mere dark street into perspective. Once you have endured the
aftermath of a win at the ‘New’ Den, there is little in everyday life that can
frighten you.
Football, then, helps you conquer fear, see the
world and gives you something to talk about. This strikes me as a pretty good deal. Of
course, in return you must offer a lifetime of sacrifice, but everyone knows that
there’s no such thing as a free lunch. So let’s away with this sad git nonsense.
Above all, the good thing about football is that
it prepares you for a life of disappointment. Football is ultimately pointless. It
doesn’t matter. It’s a waste of time. As such, it is an ideal model of life
itself. For life is ultimately short, disappointing and without meaning. Football teaches
you to expect agony, despair and disappointment most of the time, with only occasional and
often false flashes of exhilaration. And really, what other philosophy do you need?
Besides, when I was walking up to the tube for
the Saturday morning Millwall rendezvous, I passed a long line of cars waiting patiently
for the carwash. And they call us sad?
Firmo
September-October 1999
